Although my teaching days are in the past (10 years as an adjunct at the University of Pennsylvania Law School), I still like to keep one eye on the literature. Interested readers may want to check out a new case book from Carolina Academic Press.  It is entitled  Products Liability Law: Cases, Commentary, and Conundra by Tim Kaye, a professor of law at Stetson University College of Law, a British lawyer bu original training.

The publisher notes: Products liability law is often confusing because it is in a state of constant flux as it confronts a number of challenges. Some such challenges are well known, such as the battle over the comparative merits of the Second and Third Restatements of Torts. Other equally important challenges may have, however, been somewhat overlooked by other texts, such as the growing use of bankruptcy protection laws to limit the consequences of supplying defective products, “and this book sets out to rectify such omissions.”

While some other books leave the reader to sink or swim in a swamp of apparently contradictory doctrine, Products Liability Law promises to lay out from the beginning the elements common to all products liability claims. It then builds on this foundation by tackling each new area of the law in a lucid and reader-friendly manner, while explaining how each doctrine relates to the politico-economic and historical context in which the law operates, promises the publisher.

It was nice to see some old nuggets I used, like Boatland of Houston, Inc. v. Valerie Bailey on state of the art, and Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. as an introduction to toxic tort product cases, side by side with newer cases, like Conte v. Wyeth, used here on the concept of reliance.

Supplementing the text with numerous original flowcharts, tables, and other diagrams—as well as asking thoughtful questions along the way—this book charts a careful and comprehensible course through the often tempestuous battleground of products liability law, says the publisher.  See if you agree.